Ping Bubble -- RTT and such

I was reading about problems with FPS and guess I am okay there since I normally run 50-62 FPS unless, like now, I am online elsewhere at the same time.

My question concerns the whole purpose of the Ping Bubble and, specifically the Ping Rate. The Ping Rate (RTT) I guess I understand... Why it is there I do not.

How useful is something that measures in Milliseconds and changes numerical values almost before you can read what is there. This is confounded by the rates wide ranges sometimes consecutive rates varying by thousands in value.
For instance I had one series that went from 13K to 123 and back up to 11k+ in less than time than you took to read this sentence.

The only thing I have noticed is that since the Ping Bubble has come online the chars hangup more and the number of fatal errors resulting in being bounced off the net altogether have increased significantly. There is no consolation in being able to send messages to Guild Wars when you are 10 minutes into a mission and have to start over again.

If the purpose of the Ping Bubble is to force players OFF the net then it is successful because I have significantly cut my playing time due to this irritating Ping Bubble. Somehow I doubt that, I hope, is the purpose of its'
addition.

Why is this in the wiki section, should be in Tech's corner.

BTW, i'm not sure what you are saying makes any sense.

I find it a useful indication of how good my connection is. A ping constitutes a very minor, almost negligible effect on the bandwidth (unless the developers decided to sabotage their own game client). I personally have not noticed any difference with "being bounced off the net" or any difference in lag.

To respond to Stemnin's very good question... I am not to clued in to this forumn stuff. I just posted it because this section was obvious...

As to not making much sense... You got me... I sure do not understand what is going on which is probably why I am not making as much sense as you would prefer. Valid complaint on your part.

What I have noticed is a deterioration in the program that coincided with the start of the Ping Bubble.

I question the value of the Ping Bubble when it bounces all over the place with rates varying from 123 ms to 13K and more in less than a minute.

Are you referring to the little round latency indicator in the lower right hand corner of the screen?

If so, I agree, my game seems to have taken a performance hit: load times in particular.

Additionally, a more pressing issue is the Error 007's that seem to be routine every since the last update that ended Winterfest.

I think ANet should have an option of turning it on or off as well as moving the icon itself as part of the interface.

Kudelbar Valiturus,

You got it.. and thanks for IDing the Error 007. Since that Ping Bubble came up I have been getting bumped at least twice a day with that error. About one out of 5 bumps ANet programming allows me to rejoin the game where I was which is nice. Be nicer if the Error 007 never happened.

The "ping" thing has always been built into the game, but the little graphic was recently added. It used to be text, and shown by the -pref command on the shortcut. The bubble merely shows the time between you and the game server: green for good, red for bad. The higher the "ping", the worse the connection. There are hundreds of reasons it may be higher or lower, and most are completely unrelated to ANet at all. On a wireless connection, your ping may fluxuate during a thunderstorm, or when someone turns on the microwave. Your ISP may be overloaded. Your computer may be using too much bandwidth (a torrent or download). All of these things will increase the miliseconds it takes for data to make it back to your computer, but the actual function of checking it realistcaly wont make a difference on performance becaues it uses such a tiny amount of bandwidth.

Okay. Thanks for the explanation Wrath. Based on that it is apparently just coincidental that the error rates have increased which is even more frustrating because most of these seem to have occurred AFTER the major overload during Winterfest. Most of the Error 007 types seem to occur when only 3 or fewer (including Foreign) districts are open. Only had one during Winterfest when there were some 200 +/- districts running. Still do not understand whats happening.

Ya, I need to find the game update notes...but it appears there was a portal "fix" in the last update that precipitated the the Error 7's and 58's that seem to be happening.

Guild Wars has always been the most stable, solid online game I have ever played until about 5 days ago.